00:00What conclusion have you Tories come up with after watching the amazing success yesterday of reform?
00:08And the fact that Nigel Farage has always made it very clear that he would rather see the Conservative Party smashed to nothingness.
00:17I mean, do you think he will be the next Prime Minister?
00:20Do you think they have a chance now of building on maybe disaffected Tory voters?
00:25Well, I thank you for saying what Nigel Farage wants to do with the Conservative Party,
00:31because we often hear people say, you know, shouldn't there be pacts between the Conservative Party and reform?
00:35But the truth is that the reform and the Conservative Party are two very distinct parties.
00:40Reform combines some aspects of Conservative values, but also has this popular nationalism,
00:46which talks about things like nationalisation of industries.
00:49That isn't a Conservative policy. We don't think that's the right approach for the economy.
00:54But we have to acknowledge the reform did very well, yes.
00:57They won the run-corn by-election of Labour.
01:00They've won some mayoralties.
01:02And now they will get the chance to show what they can actually do when they're given power.
01:06So no longer pointing at problems, but actually there to try and find solutions,
01:11albeit on a local level, to help the people in Lincolnshire or Hull,
01:16where they have taken over the mayoralties,
01:18and others where they have taken control of the councils.
01:21They'll find out, reform will find out, I think,
01:24that there are no simple answers locally to public finances at a local government level.
01:28They'll have to make some difficult choices,
01:30and the local public will hold them to account for the decisions they make.
01:33It will be tough. I mean, there's no two ways about it.
01:36However, Richard, where's the passion?
01:39Where is the passion from Kemi Badenauk and from members of her team?
01:44I mean, including you in all of this,
01:46because when you look at reform, and yet it's going to be tough,
01:50and yes, they can say things easier from the sidelines
01:53than they can do when they're on the pitch, as they will discover,
01:56but there is a passion which appeals to those people
01:59who look at where we are in this country and say,
02:02it's falling apart, we're not happy, we're not satisfied with how things are,
02:07and here's someone with enthusiasm who says
02:09they're going to at least try to change it.
02:12Where's the passion in the Tories?
02:13Hmm. Well, look, I'm probably not the best person to...
02:20I'm not a particularly emotionally driven person.
02:23It doesn't mean I don't care. Of course I care.
02:25But as I said earlier, I think that the issue for me is there is one...
02:30When people have these concerns, you're right,
02:32these are real concerns.
02:34You can choose to be a politician that just scratches the itch
02:36and comes up with a slogan, and that is, you know,
02:40a number of politicians do that.
02:42Or you can say that we have to find solutions,
02:45and those involve very hard choices.
02:47So trying to get public services to work means that you've got to look at,
02:50very seriously, the ways in which we can improve public sector productivity.
02:54That's a difficult problem. It's not a particularly emotional problem.
02:57Trying to build an economy that doesn't rely on large-scale immigration in this country,
03:01that's a difficult problem that needs difficult, thorough solutions.
03:05It's not an emotionally... a policy that can be driven by emotions.
03:11So, yes, I understand the desire for emotions.
03:13But what the public told us last year, which again we're feeling in this lecture,
03:16is that they want us to come up with the policies that will work.
03:19That is hard and difficult.
03:21And, yes, once those policies come forward, like they have on net zero,
03:25like they have on some aspects of immigration,
03:26there's more to come in that area,
03:28you will see conservatives speaking passionately for those new policies.
Comments